Amiga Ghouls N Ghosts - Sound Effects?

[Megalomaniac]

When playing the commonly available crack of US Gold's conversion of Ghouls N Ghosts, which was well reviewed at the time, no sound effects can be heard. However, no reviews mention that there are none, the option to toggle between them and (Tim Follin's famously wonderful) music is there.

When interviewed by LemonAmiga (https://www.lemonamiga.com/interviews/david_broadhurst/) Coder David Broadhurst maintains that they were there, that he tested a production copy on real hardware and heard them. He speculates that a copy protection issue may be the cause - can anyone who has the original confirm whether it has them (and are they any good?)

[Galahad/FLT]

https://eab.abime.net/showthread.php...s+ghosts+sound

[Galahad/FLT]

So i've looked in this game before, but now i've deep dived to bring a definitive answer.

So, did this game ever have SFX?

Answer is NO it never did, and i'm convinced David Broadhurst is wrong.

1). Once game does its disk swap when loading screen displays, it NEVER goes back to Disk A

2). Disk B is 98.99% full

3). There is no SFX files on Disk A or B, there is no SFX contained within the program file.

4). Format of the files is pretty straight forward. Anything with .IFF extension is obviously graphics, anything with .SPR is sprite/bob data, anything with .T1 extension is Tim Follins music.

5). There is no SFX hidden in any of Tim Follins music

6). There is no reference to F2 in the game code

7). The earliest you could select SFX would be on the Titlescreen when that awesome music is playing.

8). For the game to be able to load the SFX, it would HAVE to load it from Disk A because there is no room left on Disk B

9). There is only one text string for a disk swap in the program code and it only references swapping to Disk B and then pressing Space Bar.

10). The code that displays that message is only ever called once

11). At no point does any code change the DISK B message to DISK A message

12). There is no code to request a disk swap to Disk A

13). If SFX was present, I would expect the game to set a flag before it tries to load any ingame music (i.e. if flag = true then dont load music else music), there is no such flag, the music is loaded from a table and nothing stops that from happening.

14). The Atari ST version DOES have SFX on the F2 key, it is chip processed not samples.

15). On ST version, when you press F2 it prints the message "MUSIC OFF" to denote SFX active and "MUSIC ON" when you press F2 again.

16). Those two text strings are in the Amiga version, but no code points at them, though oddly the code to process the game crashing, references lots of Atari ST registers!!

Ghouls n Ghosts on the Amiga does NOT have SFX

[BigD]

Good research! Shame about the conclusion!

[Torti-the-Smurf]

Well, that game on the Amiga is so bad it´s almost funny

That said; will it get a 2nd Button = Jump patch for the WHDload version ? Please

Would be really neat, because shooting up is so annoying in the current state

Hmmm, there is even a Mantis request for this Feature
http://mantis.whdload.de/view.php?id=6005

[saimon69]

Originally Posted by Torti-the-Smurf

Well, that game on the Amiga is so bad it´s almost funny

That said; will it get a 2nd Button = Jump patch for the WHDload version ? Please

I would prefer a recode from scratch, not sure about you

[TCD]

Originally Posted by Galahad/FLT

So i've looked in this game before, but now i've deep dived to bring a definitive answer.

Thank you. I've added the info and a link to your post to the HOL entry.

[h0ffman]

Originally Posted by Galahad/FLT

4). Format of the files is pretty straight forward. Anything with .IFF extension is obviously graphics, anything with .SPR is sprite/bob data, anything with .T1 extension is Tim Follins music.

I'm assuming you've check ever iff file as samples can be stored in the format.

[Galahad/FLT]

Originally Posted by h0ffman

I'm assuming you've check ever iff file as samples can be stored in the format.

Yup, all pictures

[Korban]

Originally Posted by Torti-the-Smurf

Well, that game on the Amiga is so bad it´s almost funny

That said; will it get a 2nd Button = Jump patch for the WHDload version ? Please

Would be really neat, because shooting up is so annoying in the current state

Hmmm, there is even a Mantis request for this Feature
http://mantis.whdload.de/view.php?id=6005

I like it.
It's far from a good conversion, but as it's own game I had a lot of fun with it.

[Megalomaniac]

This kind of oversight was all too common in US Gold arcade conversions of the time, quite apart from almost all being straight ST ports, and rarely even getting close to the ST's performance potential. Reviewers largely either didn't notice, didn't care, or (dare I suggest it) were being incentivised to look the other way. This one's far from atrocious to play, but the collision detection means that its not just the visuals and sound letting it down.

[Retro1234]

This is one of my moans when people say a game is an ST port
.....is it even using the ST at full capacity or is it just a bad conversation.

[BigD]

Capcom actually made some effort with Super Ghouls 'N Ghosts on the SNES adding a double jump amongst other improvements! Amiga conversions should have been far better! I think Super Hang-On is one of the only good arcade conversions I've played!

[ImmortalA1000]

Super Hang-on is barely any better than the ST version. Both are crap Amiga games, Ghouls might have 28 colours on screen but I've seen better Atari ST pixel art to be honest. It's nothing more than a £30 collection of Tim Follin MODs IMO

[gimbal]

Opinions become so pointless when you just call things "crap" for the sake of calling it crap. Apply a little nuance, please? How can you call a game like Super Hang-on crap when it is miles ahead of the actual crap that is Outrun or Power Drift.

I find it a little light in the gameplay variety and thus ultimately not something I can play for an extended period of time. I have the same problem with Lotus 1. It's decently made, but it's too much of the same thing throughout.

[Galahad/FLT]

Yeah, I'm not sure how anyone can call Super Hang On crap on Amiga.

The much vaunted "extras" for the Amiga clearly didn't happen, but what the fuck are we comparing it to in 1988 and then deciding it was crap???????

And thats the key point here, 1988 was its release date, not 1993. That's eons in software terms.

Could it have been better? Yes, just not in 1988, the 68000 skills and Amiga coding skills hadn't quite arrived just yet.

[TCD]

Originally Posted by Galahad/FLT

The much vaunted "extras" for the Amiga clearly didn't happen, but what the fuck are we comparing it to in 1988 and then deciding it was crap???????

I mean there was Buggy Boy.... or Space Racer

[gimbal]

Originally Posted by TCD

I mean there was Buggy Boy.... or Space Racer

Buggy Boy, another example of something that people must have been awestruck with at release but I wasn't there to experience that, so to me it's just a colorful and jolly but excessively repetitive little romp.

[Weasel Fierce]

Originally Posted by Galahad/FLT

Yeah, I'm not sure how anyone can call Super Hang On crap on Amiga.

The much vaunted "extras" for the Amiga clearly didn't happen, but what the fuck are we comparing it to in 1988 and then deciding it was crap???????

And thats the key point here, 1988 was its release date, not 1993. That's eons in software terms.

Could it have been better? Yes, just not in 1988, the 68000 skills and Amiga coding skills hadn't quite arrived just yet.

Its still scored fairly favorably on lemonamiga and it reviewed pretty well at the time.

Lotus came out in 90 and was a new standard for racing games on the system but it took time to get there.

[ImmortalA1000]

Originally Posted by gimbal

Opinions become so pointless when you just call things "crap" for the sake of calling it crap. Apply a little nuance, please? How can you call a game like Super Hang-on crap when it is miles ahead of the actual crap that is Outrun or Power Drift.

I find it a little light in the gameplay variety and thus ultimately not something I can play for an extended period of time. I have the same problem with Lotus 1. It's decently made, but it's too much of the same thing throughout.

Easy, it's called having experience in all the games AND the capabilities of the hardware AND whether a game is a simple ST port job (which ZZKJ openly admits).

Saying Super Hang-On is OK because OutRun is worse. I have justified my comments about Super Hang-On technically MANY times, deal with it and you lack of experience playing 10,000+ computer games in the last decade on real hardware like I have.